Rony Lopes

[Neville Kneville]

The 19-21 age period is the problem IMO. In Spain, Germany, Holland they have B teams at a professional level. Players like Busquets didn't even touch the Barca first team until they were out of their teens. It's very normal for teenagers to rarely play for elite level clubs (unless they are stupendously good), except the occasional novelty appearance. Like Lopes could have stayed and gotten 10, maybe 15 games, but that isn't enough. So what can we do except ask him to renew and loan him? Force him into the first team at the expense of a better player?

It is enough though. In that many games we, & he, get to find out whether he is out of his depth or not & whether he is improving fast enough to become a possible senior player for next season. But he wouldn't have got ten to 15 games. He would get one. That's the problem.

 

[razman]

Sad fact is that Sterling wouldn't be at City now if he had started at City

Agreed

 

[sam663]

The 19-21 age period is the problem IMO. In Spain, Germany, Holland they have B teams at a professional level. Players like Busquets didn't even touch the Barca first team until they were out of their teens. It's very normal for teenagers to rarely play for elite level clubs (unless they are stupendously good), except the occasional novelty appearance. Like Lopes could have stayed and gotten 10, maybe 15 games, but that isn't enough. So what can we do except ask him to renew and loan him? Force him into the first team at the expense of a better player?

I don't think it's a problem really, except of occasional performances that fat arse Frenchman has been a massive flop in Champions League and hardly ever performed when the going got tough. Lopes would have easily replaced him.

 

[twosips]

It is enough though. In that many games we, & he, get to find out whether he is out of his depth or not & whether he is improving fast enough to become a possible senior player for next season. But he wouldn't have got ten to 15 games. He would get one. That's the problem.

This ^ 10, or 15, games is more than enough. He'd take it too i think. If he had had a 30 min sub appearance already he'd be hanging round still.

 

[stablemcfc]

City is still in a learning process. We've grown so much over the last few years into what we are now as a football club, but there are obviously still areas that need improving.

We've built a great youth set up, but we need to start utilising it sooner rather than later or we'll just become a place youth players come to for great facilities before leaving us to ply there trade at other clubs rather than attempting to get into our team.

I believe some of it must be down to the fact the managerial position feels so precarious, Pellegrini has a great first year, followed by a bad second and most people expect he wass going to be sacked. Similar with Mancini. If Pellegrini had another poor year he'd be under massive pressure, would you risk your job trying to play unproven players when you can spend big and buy proven ability?

For me we need a manager who's in it for the long term with the boards backing before we start to see risks being taken with youth players. Whether Pellegrini is that man, well it doesn't feel like the board believe he is, more of a short-term prospect. I think we've done good business this window in bringing in YOUNG talent for a change that can form the base for a new team for many years and which will hopefully be something players from the youth team can add onto.

 

[ninjamonkey]

I don't buy into the "others will think twice before signing for us" stance at all. At that age, it's less about which club will be more likely to give them a chance further down the line, and more about which club can help them to develop to their full potential, and that is undoubtedly City with the set up we have at the Academy. They'll worry about getting chances once they've had a few years in a world class academy, and if in the end, if the worst comes to the worst and they feel they're good enough yet are still not getting a chance then they'll simply move on elsewhere to a team where they will get a chance having benefited from spending time developing in the best facilities this country has to offer.

Lopes, whilst being a very gifted player was unfortunately not good enough to make our bench, nevermind the first 11. It's the right choice for all involved to get rid now. Not every promising player is going to make it with us. We're not a club that just wants to survive anymore, every game we play has something at stake so we can't afford to just be throwing in every promising academy player like other teams lower down the league can. It's the price you pay for success.

The managers, scouts and coaches will identify who's worth keeping and who's worth giving a chance to when the time's right. They've deemed Lopes not good enough and i trust them on that. They're bound to get one wrong eventually, but so far they've been spot on. People were going mad when we let the likes of Emyr Huws go and said we'd regret it, Isn't he still at Wigan? Or when we lost Angel Roman to Barca, he's just signed on a free for Braga, even our best recent academy player to leave, Denis Suarez, who's doing very well for Sevilla wouldn't get anywhere near our team.

We'll have plenty more players in the mould of Lopes come through play a handful of games max and be sold on in the next few years, It's the players like Lopes that make the academy self sustainable whilst we continue to try and produce the truly world class talent, it's not just going to happen overnight, we're competing with every other club in the world to try and identify and sign a player that's going to become one of the very best players in the world, there's probably a dozen of those a year available worldwide if you're lucky. We can't find 2-3 every year, we'll be lucky to get 1 in 5 years but if we do, it'll be worthwhile. Patience!

 

[Gabriel]

The close of last season was an ideal time to blood some younger players, yet the hype about not finishing in the top four, coupled with the fact that the ones in line to be selected were out on loan, meant that we laboured on with the 100% professionals who had been anything but in the surrender of the trophies we held. Perhaps Lopes, Denayer et al. won't ultimately make the grade, but their being marginalised bemuses me.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

This is a direct consequence of fucking up with Negredo. He was a diamond but we fucked up after his injury and then sold him to a club who couldn't afford him. A year later we are offered a player who wasn't in our plans because they don't have the cash to pay for him and now at least two of our best prospects are fucked.

I'm not allowed to criticise Tixi on here but it is yet again his fuck up.

 

[Neville Kneville]

This is a direct consequence of fucking up with Negredo. He was a diamond but we fucked up after his injury and then sold him to a club who couldn't afford him. A year later we are offered a player who wasn't in our plans because they don't have the cash to pay for him and now at least two of our best prospects are fucked.

I'm not allowed to criticise Tixi on here but it is yet again his fuck up.

I think it's Pellegrini, panicking because of pre season.

 

[JoeMercer'sWay]

Indeed but the issue that nobody here is talking about is not so much losing Rekik, Lopes and Denayer which would be an incredible shame but not the end of the world. It's the fact that when the next 12 year old Messi is eventually discovered somewhere and every club is chasing him, his parents will look at our record and not see a club committed to bringing through young players and will see other clubs that offer all we do as well as this.

It isn't so much the problem of losing these players specifically, it's also the rather larger problem of being able to attract potentially world class young players into our Academy in the future.

maybe, but I struggle to remember the last starlet to break into the Real Madrid side from their own academy, that's cemented their place, might have to go all the way back to Casillas. It doesn't seem to hurt their first team, nor their ability to snap up whoever they want by using their reputation and financial muscle. It's not ideal, and I don't think it's the way we're going, at the moment we're in a transition and I firmly believe that next summer, providing the team delivers this year, that we will only add 2 or 3 stars, and have a core of 17 top quality players, and then have the ability to integrate youngsters into that settled setup, rather than the rather fragmented one we've had the past 2 summers.

I also don't think Lopes really showed his calibre like he could have, and I think the likes of Barker, Roberts, Garcia, Faour and Brahim are just too young and raw at the moment. Denayer has the chance to shout from the rooftops at a CL side this summer, and ultimately it's up to these youngsters to force their way in by playing ridiculously well. Everything we're doing with the academy screams of eventually getting to the Barca model, but we're not there yet. Remember when Txiki and Ferran came into Barca, they turned around the first team, buying proven players and winning trophies, just compare the 2006 & 2009 CL final teams, I think we're more at the 2006 stage comparatively, but I don't think we have that calibre of youngster coming through yet. If the likes of those I mentioned above all fail, then I'll be inclined to agree with you, at the moment I think there's too many factors at play to really hammer it down as failing.